A collection of my thoughts, muses and creative pursuits from the learning and education space! A serendipitous journey over technology and operations led me into learning and education and here I am on the cusp of my entrepreneurial journey.

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Googleman

I am a superhero. Googleman. Without google, I am the ordinary human being. But with Google at my disposal, I become the superhero.

I also strongly suspect that between the age range of 3 and 8, children believe their parents are superheroes. Post this age, the power of
the internet is available to kids and they discover googlesearches
themselves.

Parents the world over
should be thankful to google for increasing their question answering by an exponential
factor. Earlier there were a zillion questions that could go unanswered.
But not any more. The internet gives parents the power to answer the
most obscure of questions. I am not sure if this is good or bad, but it
does seem like the fact that answers are available means that more
questions can be asked.

Sample this:

Why do buses have bigger steering wheels?

Why does Audi name their cars one way and BMW another way?

Who invented soap (and this screaming from the bathroom)?

Who invented shampoo?

Who invented bathing?

What is a turbocharger?

How does a petrol engine work?

Why does one need a spoiler on a car?

What is an air-dam?

(As you can see, atleast one persons life revolves around cars at this point.)

With
the power of the internet, almost every question can be answered. And
that feels pretty cool for the kid, until at some point they discover
things themselves.

Now,
our modus operandi is not to answer questions directly, but ponder over
it a bit and then get our own local, personal Eureka moment by googling
and zeroing in on the answer. Whoever thought Google search skills
would be so rewarding.